You need to hire a new employee. You carry out a series of interviews and are impressed by one particular candidate and offer them the job. You need the role filled and it seemed like a ‘no brainer’ at the time, they had the right experience and skills and came across well.
Not long after they arrive, the cracks start to appear. The team seems all out of sorts, bad patterns start emerging, you get complaints from other employees, sometimes they don’t show up on time and the way they show up in meetings doesn’t match with the way they first appeared in the interview.
You’re beginning to think you’ve made a bad hire.
If this sounds familiar, you may have failed to find the right ‘fit’ for your company. It’s a common mistake, particularly at the moment when there is such a shortage of candidates, on what appears to be a very crowded job board.
An ineffective hire can have serious consequences for your business. After all, Deloitte estimates that losing an employee can cost a company up to two times that person’s annual salary.
The fact is, hiring someone who blends with your company’s culture is far more valuable than someone who has the right skills to do the job.
So how do companies hire for the right fit? Is there a secret formula to the interview process? Here are some things to consider to make sure you assess for cultural fit in the interview:
Be creative
Go beyond just asking standard interview questions and start going a little deeper:
Questions such as: “How do you like to be managed?” “How do you feel about working from home?” or “Describe an environment in which you are most productive and happy?”
You don’t need to give them any clues as to your views on management style, working from home or even your work environment, but it’s good to see if their view aligns with that of your own company culture.
Be challenging
Put the candidates in situations where they are more likely to show their true selves.
“Tell me about a difficult situation with your boss and how you handled it?”
“Can you tell me about a time you made a mistake a work and how you handled it?”
How they answer these reveals a lot about their personality and how they are going to fit in with the culture of your business. Don’t be afraid to probe deeper if their answers seem a little vague or you want to find out more.
Allow your employees to help
In the second or third interview, try to involve other members of the team, even those more junior who are going to work with this candidate. It’s really important that you get feedback from others in the team. We all have selection bias that can affect the way we perceive people and getting feedback from others can help realign your views with what’s best for the business, rather than let your own bias lead the decision-making process.
Have you hired people that are the wrong cultural ‘fit’? Do you find that this is becoming a pattern in your hiring process? Our team would love to help by reviewing your recruitment process and interview criteria.
